Time Jump
by Mirrankei
Summary: Vortex Manipulators are tricky things to handle. They never quite go where you were hoping...


" - faith in me!"

Jack stepped out of his quarters, half dressed, gun in his hand, ready to face whatever threat had just appeared in the main Hub. His wrist strap's sensors had gone off at the first sign of a ripple in time, but he'd only caught the flash of light and the end of the woman's sentence as she materialized.

The woman had dark brown hair, tied in a loose pony tail. She was dressed all in black, a small black bag was strapped over her shoulder, and she was staring curiously at the top of Suzie's desk. She reached out to touch one of the devices lying on top of it.

Jack leveled his gun at her. "Who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get in here?"

The woman looked up at him, more calmly than he would have preferred. She frowned at him. "Oh," she said. "Damn it."

"Who are you?" Jack repeated. The strange thing was, she looked sort of familiar. He had a weird sense of deja-vu about the whole situation.

"Nobody," she said, and pulled up her left sleeve to glare at the vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.

"Where did you get that?" Jack tightened his grip on his gun. A Time Agent? Here?

"Nowhere," the woman muttered. "What year is it?"

Jack hesitated before answering. "2003."

"Okay." She poked at the wrist strap for another second. "Sorry about that. See you in a bit."

She pressed another button on the manipulator and disappeared in a flash of light.

There was a loud thump and some very unladylike language when the woman suddenly appeared in the middle of the table.

Literally, in the middle of it. It splintered around her hips as she materialized in the center of it, which likely explained the cursing. The broken pieces jabbing into her sides looked quite painful. Of course, it wouldn't be nearly as painful as being shot.

Given that the encounter was a complete surprise, Alice was very glad she kept her pistol on her at all times. She pointed it at the stranger.

"Oh hell," the stranger muttered. "Not again."

"Hello," Alice said, quite amiably. The interruption was actually quite welcome. All she'd had to look forward to for the evening was paperwork: this was far more interesting.

"Hello," said the woman, slightly sheepish. She smiled cautiously and raised a hand to wave. "Sorry. I sort of... miscalculated."

"Quite all right," said Alice. "We can get a new table. Now, why don't you tell me what it is you're doing here?"

"Er," she said, plucking a sliver of wood from her trousers. Alice was never really fond of crossdressing, but she'd certainly seen stranger things in her career. The woman shrugged. "I'm not really supposed to say. I'm with Torchwood, if that means anything."

"It means something," said Alice. "Alice Guppy, current head of Torchwood."

"Oh good. I was a bit afraid I'd gotten the wrong place." She looked around. "I don't suppose you could tell me what year it is?"

"1902," Alice said. "Now, your purpose here?"

"I was actually looking for Jack."

Alice didn't have any outward reaction, but she certainly didn't lower her weapon either. "Mister Harkness is away. On official Torchwood business in India."

"Oh good. He'd never let me live it down if he knew I came this far back." She made another apologetic smile. "If you don't mind, do you think you could... not tell him about this?"

Alice smiled slightly. "I suppose. And I suppose I should believe that you're doing all this on official Torchwood business, and you cannot give me any further information, for fear of interfering with the timeline?"

"Afraid so."

Alice sighed and lowered her pistol. "Very well then. I'm in a good mood. Go on before I decide I'd prefer to keep you."

The woman smiled again and pulled up her sleeve to reveal a device quite similar to Harkness'. She tapped at its screen and disappeared in another flash of light.

It was the middle of the night, and there was a fizzle and a thump, and suddenly a girl appeared. At first Jack thought she was just another hallucination, but those were usually dressed in something a whole lot skimpier, if anything at all, or at least resembled someone he knew.

This woman was dressed all in black from head to toe, and she was laughing at him. Oh well, at least she was gorgeous.

"Hey," he said, a little blearily.

"Hi." Pretty Welsh vowels rang in his ears. "Seventies?"

"Yup."

"Right. Nice mustache."

She pushed a button on her wrist - hey, was that a wrist-thingy like his? - and disappeared with a flash.

Jack was roused by a sound from out in the main Hub. He didn't really want to get up, comfy as he was, but duty called, and he wasn't going to interrupt Ianto's sleep unless it turned out to be an emergency.

He shoved on a pair of trousers and headed up the ladder to see what was up. Out in the main Hub, he spotted the disturbance pretty quick.

"Gwen?" He yawned in the middle of his sentence. "What're you doing back here? It's the middle of the night."

Gwen looked up from where she'd been fiddling with something on Owen's desk. She was fully dressed, like she was heading off on a mission, not even like she'd thrown on whatever she could find in her hurry to get over. She sighed heavily. "Finally."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Finally what?"

Gwen stomped up the stairs to meet him, slinging a bag off of her shoulder. She shoved it into his hands.

"This is for you."

"Thanks...?"

She smacked his hand away from the zipper. "Don't open it."

"Sorry? Look, Gwen, what's going on?"

"Don't open it until the thing with the meteor."

"Meteor?"

"2013. Meteor. Don't open until then. Got it?"

"Got it, sure."

"And don't mention this to me in the morning."

"Right," said Jack, starting to get the idea. "Timey-wimey kind of thing?"

"Something like that," Gwen muttered. She stepped back and reached into her sleeve to access a vortex manipulator.

Jack raised his eyebrow again but didn't comment. "Taking off then?"

"Yup," she said. "If the damn thing gets me home this time though, it'll be a miracle."

She tapped the 'go' button and disappeared. Jack shook his head, laughing slightly, and headed down to join Ianto back in bed.

With the invasion stopped and all the brainwash victims cured, Gwen was looking forward to settling down and having some time to relax at home. No such luck. When she made it down into their temporary Hub, Jack was waiting for her.

"Did you take those notes I asked you to?"

"Yes," Gwen said, scowling. She swung her little black bag over her shoulder and pulled out the diary she'd been working on since Jack had made the strange request. "Latitude and longitude of the initial attack, Mrs. Flannery's telephone number, a map of the escape route from the Eiffel Tower... what do you need all this crap for, Jack, it's all done with, isn't it?"

"Not quite. You kept a vial of the brainwash cure, right?"

"Yes," Gwen snarled. "And I've replaced the pack of cigarettes, like you asked, and picked up fresh ammo, like you asked, and I've got the freeze-dried banana slices and the bloody dagger. I don't get why you needed me to replace every bloody thing we used for this whole stupid month, but I got everything on your ridiculous shopping list. And got all the artifacts cleaned, yes. What the hell is all this for?"

"To avoid a paradox." He handed her a pad of paper. The second page had writing on it. It looked like some sort of instructions, but Jack flipped to the front and handed her a pen as well. "Write a note."

"What kind of note?" Gwen scowled and clicked the pen open.

"As if someone opened a Christmas present ahead of time."

Gwen gave him a skeptical look, but scribbled down,

_Jack you idiot, I told you not to open this. Be a good boy and be patient._

_- Gwen_

"Right," said Jack, and stuffed the pad into the front pocket of her bag. To her surprise, the next thing he did was unstrap his wrist strap and hold it out to her.

"What?"

"Put it on."

She obeyed, getting somewhat excited. "What's this for, then?"

"You need to go back and give this bag to me before the whole thing starts. Sometime after Owen's first death, I think."

"That's not very specific," she muttered, fiddling with the screen. "I thought the Doctor disabled the time travel function."

"Yeah, and I re-enabled it. Make sure I know who you are before you give it to me. Try not to come into contact with anybody else, and don't let me open the bag before the meteor strike from last year."

"All right, all right," Gwen said. The wrist strap wasn't actually all that complicated. She keyed in a date, time, and location that met Jack's specifications. Late at night, so nobody else would be at the Hub. "I've got it. Don't fuck up the timeline. No problem."

"Good." Jack stood back with a somewhat amused smile. "It might take you a couple of tries before you get the right place."

Gwen rolled her eyes and pressed the enter key on the manipulator. "Honestly, Jack, after all we've been through, you should have a little more - "


End file.
